The 2000th Death
POETRY FORMAT, 10 Nov 2014
Tom Greening – TRANSCEND Media Service
(Staff Sgt. George T. Alexander, Jr., 34, of Killeen, Texas, died Saturday at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, of wounds suffered Oct. 17, when a bomb exploded near his vehicle in the central Iraqi city of Samarra. The spokesman for the American-led multinational force called on news organizations not to look at the 2,000th death as a milestone in the conflict. Lt. Col. Steve Boylan described 2,000 figure as an “artificial mark on the wall.”)
Although George died as victim of a bomb
let’s greet his death with patriots’ aplomb.
There’s nothing in his death that’s grim or stark,
for he is just an artificial mark
on some abstract imaginary wall,
a boring, dry statistic after all.
And this is something everyone should know:
GIs like George, they bravely come and go.
No endpoint this; there will be more to come.
The count goes on and leaves us merely numb.
______________________________
Tom Greening: “I engage in five professional activities:
Faculty Member at Saybrook University
Private Practice of Psychotherapy
Clinical Professor of Psychology, UCLA
International Editor of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology
Writing (Poetry).”
www.tomgreening.com
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 10 Nov 2014.
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